Sunday, May 31, 2009

Go. Read. And when the same people who have been screeching hysterically, year after year, about how abortion is murder that kills a human being and how life is sacred and abortion clinics are like the Holocaust are suddenly, like, totally shocked and appalled by Tiller's murder, just slap them. Hard.

Oh, my. Apparently, the homicidal anti-choice troops just got their new talking point fresh off the fax machine. Over at Jabba the Roy's, we have commenter "GrannyGrump":

Ti-Guy, no matter what the motive, the shooter was acting on prochoice philosophy -- that if somebody's existence troubles you, you have every right to kill them. YOU WHO FORWARD THAT PHILOSOPHY ARE GUILTY, not those of us who argue that you don't solve your personal problems by killing people.

I absolutely denounce this crime. Killing doctors or anyone is evil, regardless of your point of view. Those who did this should be caught and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Killing a man on his way into church is truly despicable.

Sorry, Doc, but when you've yammered on about the evils of abortion year after year, you don't have the moral ground to be outraged when something like this happens. So shut the fuck up, and leave the grieving and mourning for those who aren't worthless, mealy-mouthed hypocrites.

Ti-Guy, no matter what the motive, the shooter was acting on prochoice philosophy -- that if somebody's existence troubles you, you have every right to kill them. YOU WHO FORWARD THAT PHILOSOPHY ARE GUILTY, not those of us who argue that you don't solve your personal problems by killing people.

I can't begin to imagine the cripping mental disease behind that kind of thinking.

WICHITA - George Tiller, the Wichita doctor who became a national lightning rod in the debate over abortion, was shot to death this morning as he walked into church services.

Any minute now, we can expect the appropriate level of outrage from Canada's wankers, as SUZANNE once again lectures us on the value of every human life, "Neo Conservative" mourns that Tiller wasn't black, and Stephen Taylor's Blogging Tories will get right on it as soon as they finish shrieking about Ruby Dhalla's housekeepers and how progressives sometimes use intemperate language.

A little information about the brilliant Mr.Tsujii, via the Dallas News:

He has been here only a week, but from the moment he arrived, Nobuyuki Tsujii has had an impact on the neighborhood. Each day, the ritual is the same: He eats breakfast with his host family, John and Carol Davidson, who live in a town home near downtown Fort Worth, and then begins to play: Chopin, Debussy, Liszt, Beethoven.

Molly, the Davidsons' tiny Cairn terrier, nestles under the Steinway for a closer listen. A mom walking an infant circles the door repeatedly. Rather than complain, other neighbors have asked the Davidsons to please keep the front door open. "We've been joking about charging them," Carol Davidson says. "I cry a lot when I hear him play. And when I'm not crying, I feel goose bumps."

Tsujii, 20, is one of 29 competitors in the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, now taking place at Bass Performance Hall. This is his second international competition and fourth overall. But he is believed to be the first contestant in the history of the Cliburn who can't see.

New kid on the block Mark Peters sets to work dragging the intellectual level over at The Politiceven lower (if that's physically possible):

NS NDP, corner pocketMay 31, 2009 · By Mark Peters

No surprise that CUPE is publicly endorsing and organizing a voting block for the Nova Scotia NDP.

But what happens if the NDP form government? Who’s in whose pocket then?

In what I'm guessing is totally unrelated news, the fact that the Stephen Harper government of Canada continues to pander shamelessly to its drooling, mouth-breathing, gay-bashing, evolution-hating, racist, neo-Nazi base is, well, a coincidence. I'm sure it would be unfair to draw any sort of comparison.

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Stupendously, spectacularly gullible Blogging Tories: "Have you seen this? Where more than half of all Canadians think the economy is going to improve next year? Is Stephen Harper totally awesome or what? He's so dreeeeeamy."

Alternate interpretation: "More than half of all Canadians are so mind-numbingly horrified at how badly the Conservatives have boned the economy up the ass that they can only believe that things will get better next year because they can't imagine how things could possibly get worse."

Future bag lady and full time zygoteer SUZIE ALL-CAPS is barking and squealing at HER usual, fever pitch about all things abortion. SHE comes to HER delusions honestly, SHE is after all a raving catholic. Which brings one to wonder about a few things. With all of HER raving about rights and protections for the unborn, why doesn't SHE care a fig for the children that are actually sentient, viable post-uterine creatures? Where is HER condemnation of the molestation, violence, torments and abuse of innocent children at the hands of Irish priests and nuns in workhouses? Nada. Not a peep.

Seems once the little buggers have been sprung from the womb, they're on their own. But these are the very children that SHE is fighting to bring to term, the children of the impoverished, the children of rapists, the children of drug users, the children of children. Once they start sucking air instead of amniotic fluid, SUZIE and HER band of cackling loons turn their self righteous gaze back upon fresh uteruses to enslave and force through pregnancy. Their sick obsession with the plumbing between other peoples legs is pathological. It has nothing to do with life or love or children. It is about controlling strangers and inflicting their will upon their persons, privacy and physiology. Evidently the so-called abortion mills are a terrible thing but SUZIE and HER ilk have nothing at all to say about the rape and torture mills that HER church operates globally. Perhaps they're just ensuring a fresh supply.

Which brings us to the issue of tactics. Recently in a thread over at Doc Dawg's, SUZIE lit into HER usual targets with HER usual zeal... equality... protection... blah di blah etc.

If you don't think abortion is right, don't have one We believe in the equality of all human beings. All human beings should be legally protected. And Dawg, what about the pro-abortion person who assaulted pro-lifer Sue Atkinson at the 40 Days for Life, causing her to be hospitalized. If that's "concern for woman" I'll take misogyny, thanks. I'm in the pro-life movement. I've never felt misogyny. I've felt misogyny from people who support legal abortion, though. SUZANNE |

Same old, same old. Except there's that claim that poor Sue Atkinson was assaulted by a pro-lifer and hospitalized. Wow. That's quite a charge coming from the side of the debate that thinks of snipers as sidewalk counsellors. In the time since Dawg made his post, I've done the occasional search of teh Google and SUZIE's own intellectual sink hole and those investigations have turned up... nothing. Not a frickin' word about an assault or hospitalization resulting therefrom. And let's face it, if there was so much as a shove, these nut jobs would be screaming and howling from the rooftops, how the evil baybee killahs hurted a good christian lady. That would be this good christian lady...

"I was struck by the simplicity of the whole approach," said Sue Atkinson, an Ottawa 40 Days for Life participant and side walk counsellor trainee. "It all boils down to love and prayer. We are pro-life because we love and for no other reason."

When training sidewalk counsellors, Reilly emphasizes that one is not present at an abortuary merely to "save babies," but that primarily, one must recognize that they are "at the foot of the Cross" and to be in prayer like Mary and John.

These busy bodies, cretins and crackpots have a taut network of sites and bully pulpits from which to scream and yet I can find no mention of a Sue Atkinson being assaulted by anyone, let alone a pro-choice counter protester. This hasn't even made news in their very own media cluster. Which leads me to the conclusion that SUZIE is willing to sidestep the truth as well as rationality to get HER way. I'm calling shenanigans on the crazy lady, until shown otherwise, I'm going with the supposition that the upper case harridan is a fibber of the first order.

Last night, shortly after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told journalists that the Obama administration "wants to see a stop to settlements -- not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a confidante. Referring to Clinton's call for a settlement freeze, Netanyahu groused, "What the hell do they want from me?" according to his associate, who added, "I gathered that he heard some bad vibes in his meetings with [U.S.] congressional delegations this week."

Awwwww ... poor Bibi's going to lie on the rug, kick and scream and hold his breath until he turns blue. And it doesn't look like it's going to get any better:

In the 10 days since Netanyahu and President Barack Obama held a meeting at the White House, the Obama administration has made clear in public and private meetings with Israeli officials that it intends to hold a firm line on Obama's call to stop Israeli settlements. According to many observers in Washington and Israel, the Israeli prime minister, looking for loopholes and hidden agreements that have often existed in the past with Washington, has been flummoxed by an unusually united line that has come not just from Obama White House and the secretary of state, but also from pro-Israel congressmen and women who have come through Israel for meetings with him over Memorial Day recess. To Netanyahu's dismay, Obama doesn't appear to have a hidden policy. It is what he said it was.

"This is a sea change for Netanyahu," a former senior Clinton administration official who worked on Middle East issues said.

Why, yes, it is a sea change for him, isn't it? Someone finally taking Netanyahu aside and whispering, "You know, Bibi, here's a thought -- how about you stop being such a thieving, genocidal fuck and see if that works? It's just a suggestion."

Now we'll see if Obama can make this stick. I'm not optimistic but, hey, stranger things have happened. For instance, Blogging Tory "Neo Conservative" might not have mocked a murdered minority or a dead Canadian soldier once. I'm sure it's happened. Maybe.

He was tall and stunningly good looking, a guy who could appear pensive and serious one moment and then, with smoke from an unfiltered cigarette swirling around his face, morph into the hippest looking dude this side of James Dean.

I couldn't put my finger on how I felt about meeting PM Harper, but that is what I felt as well, a quiet charisma! He is very attractive, those blue eyes are very warm, and he is very easy to talk to, but he has a presence that you can not ignore. Quiet charisma describes it perfectly.

Jeeziz but I get tired of our leaders. The following is a post taken whole (and with permission) from boingboing. Cory Doctorow is a Canadian born science fiction author and a damn good one at that. Almost more importantly, he is also an activist and leader in the battle to protect your on and off line rights in both traditional and electronic media against the incursions of media lobby powered copyright legislation.

The people that we elected to look after our interests are currently eating and drinking on our ticket over in Geneva and working to strip blind people and persons with other physical disabilities that would impede that ability to read of the right to access devices and technologies that allow conversion of text for accessibility. This stuff is so infuriating, foolish and wrong that I just want to yell into the face of the nearest politician. This is the work of our supposed leaders being on the hook to graft peddling lobbyists from the entertainment and media industries. I will second the plea made by Cory to spread this information far and wide, to contact your elected representatives, take copies to the local library, call the CNIB chapter in your city or town and let the true stakeholders know what is happening.

Right now, in Geneva, at the UN's World Intellectual Property Organization, history is being made. For the first time in WIPO history, the body that creates the world's copyright treaties is attempting to write a copyright treaty dedicated to protecting the interests of copyright users, not just copyright owners.

At issue is a treaty to protect the rights of blind people and people with other disabilities that affect reading (people with dyslexia, people who are paralyzed or lack arms or hands for turning pages), introduced by Brazil, Ecuador and Paraguay. This should be a slam dunk: who wouldn't want a harmonized system of copyright exceptions that ensure that it's possible for disabled people to get access to the written word?

The USA, that's who. The Obama administration's negotiators have joined with a rogue's gallery of rich country trade representatives to oppose protection for blind people. Other nations and regions opposing the rights of blind people include Canada and the EU.

Update: Also opposing rights for disabled people: Australia, New Zealand, the Vatican and Norway.

Update 2: Countries that are on the right side of this include, "Latin American and Caribbean region including (Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Jamaica) as well as Asia and Africa."

Activists at WIPO are desperate to get the word out. They're tweeting madly from the negotiation (technically called the 18th session of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights) publishing editorials on the Huffington Post, etc.Here's where you come in: this has to get wide exposure, to get cast as broadly as possible, so that it will find its way into the ears of the obscure power-brokers who control national trade-negotiators.

I don't often ask readers to do things like this, but please, forward this post to people you know in the US, Canada and the EU, and ask them to reblog, tweet, and spread the word, especially to government officials and activists who work on disabled rights. We know that WIPO negotiations can be overwhelmed by citizen activists -- that's how we killed the Broadcast Treaty negotiation a few years back -- and with your help, we can make history, and create a world where copyright law protects the public interest.

I am attending a meeting in Geneva of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). This evening the United States government, in combination with other high income countries in "Group B" is seeking to block an agreement to discuss a treaty for persons who are blind or have other reading disabilities.

The proposal for a treaty is supported by a large number of civil society NGOs, the World Blind Union, the National Federation of the Blind in the US, the International DAISY Consortium, Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic (RFB&D), Bookshare.Org, and groups representing persons with reading disabilities all around the world.

The main aim of the treaty is to allow the cross-border import and export of digital copies of books and other copyrighted works in formats that are accessible to persons who are blind, visually impaired, dyslexic or have other reading disabilities, using special devices that present text as refreshable braille, computer generated text to speech, or large type. These works, which are expensive to make, are typically created under national exceptions to copyright law that are specifically written to benefit persons with disabilities...

The opposition from the United States and other high income countries is due to intense lobbying from a large group of publishers that oppose a "paradigm shift," where treaties would protect consumer interests, rather than expand rights for copyright owners.

The Obama Administration was lobbied heavily on this issue, including meetings with high level White House officials. Assurances coming into the negotiations this week that things were going in the right direction have turned out to be false, as the United States delegation has basically read from a script written by lobbyists for publishers, extolling the virtues of market based solutions, ignoring mountains of evidence of a "book famine" and the insane legal barriers to share works.

Those irrepressible, female-genital-mutilation-mocking, gay-bashing, evolution-dissing scamps over at The Politic are just peeing themselves over this exciting new development:

I would like to welcome long time blogger Mark Peters to the fold here at ThePolitic.com. Mark has been a staple in the Canadian political blogosphere for the past half decade; writing on markpeters.com and then mark-peters.blogspot.com.

This is going to be all kinds of awesome. Maybe the next time co-Politic blogger Matthew gets his nads handed to him in front of a worldwide audience, Mark will be there, hollering, "No problem, Matt, I got yer back! Darned scientists with their science and evidence and science and everything and stuff."

The potential entertainment value over there just went up immensely. All they need now is fellow Blogging Tory Richard Ball to totally corner the market on deranged, religious wingnuttery. One-stop shopping, as it were.

AFTERSNARK: If the excitable youngsters over at Spanky's He-Man Woman Hater's Club and Treehouse want to throw a welcome party for Mark, I think they should reprint one of Mark's more spectacular pieces of prose. Say, this one:

... I have personally witnessed supernatural healing, for example: a man in our church had one leg six inches shorter than the other from birth. He walked with a platform shoe. One night, after praying for him in a church service, a believer laid him on the floor and literally, in real time, pulled his leg out until it was the same length as the other. Six inches of flesh, bone, sinew, fiber, blood and vessel, etc. in less than a second. No pain, no surgical incision. Nothing. The man walked to his truck in his socks with both feet level on the ground and had to buy a whole new set of shoes.

Natural science cannot explain this. It defies natural laws. This is why they call it supernatural. But it did happen, it was tangible, observable and explainable, if you allow the supernatural. Certainly the person who was healed knows the new part of his leg is real; he walks on it every day. Same goes for the lady whose blindness in one eye instantaneously receded after prayer during the same service.

So we have very real things happening today that natural science cannot explain.

That would be a dynamite introduction for the readership, don't you think? It would certainly save people the time it would take them to eventually figure out that Peters was a raving dingbat who can be safely ignored.

BONUS SNARK AT NO EXTRA CHARGE: It's always amusing to watch gullible yobs like Peters yammer on about the efficacy of faith healers when it never occurs to them to ask a fairly fundamental question: If God truly wanted to "heal" someone, why does He need to "work" through an earthly vessel like a faith healer?

If God wanted that man's leg to be six inches longer, why didn't He just will it so? In private, perhaps? Without any assistance? Instead, such medical "miracles" always seem to need the intervention of a convenient "healer."

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Keen also said she finds it ironic that Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt and the government are downplaying the shutdown by saying isotopes are available elsewhere and are not always necessary anyway. In contrast, the 2007 was described as a life-or-death situation, which is why Parliament voted to overrule her decision.

"The irony is complete," she said.

And now, we wait for the Blogging Tories to post incredibly deranged and deluded crap about this. Give it time ... you know it's coming.

OH, THIS IS PRECIOUS. Let's recap The Politic's Charles Anthony's pissing and whining:

There is hope but this facility stunted technological growth. I offer the Chalk River nuclear facility — a Crown corporation — as an example of the failure of government intervention monopolizing the market place. We do not need an inquiry to figure this out.

The reflexive socialists often attack free market economics by claiming that it will invariably produce monopolies that will raise prices and restrict supply. Currently, that is exactly what government has fostered in the medical market. Blaming Stephen Harper and the Conservatives is short-sighted and displays a profound ignorance of industrial economics.

OTTAWA - Clinics are paying two to three times more for medical isotopes after a supplier abruptly hiked its prices this month - just before the Chalk River reactor shut down and caused an isotope shortage.

Doctors fear the higher costs may force some clinics to delay tests used to detect cancer and heart ailments, lay off staff or even close.

Lantheus Medical Imaging, a Massachusetts-based company that supplies clinics with 'generators' used in medical imaging, notified its customers last week of the price increase.

OK, and why the sudden price hike?

Earlier Wednesday, a spokesman for AECL also confirmed that MDS Nordion is Lantheus's only supplier of isotopes. "That would be MDS," Dale Coffin said.

Coffin also confirmed that AECL has not raised the price of the isotopes it supplies to MDS Nordion.

So, if I read this correctly, Lantheus isn't paying any more now for its isotopes, but has arbitrarily decided to jack up the price. There's your free market in action, Charles. Now, how about you shut the fuck up? Seriously.

Not surprisingly, Jabba is so fucking stupid that he can't even get Sotomayor's name correct (spelling it "Sotomayer"), but let's take a look at that apparently appalling value of her high reversal rate, shall we? Let's follow Jabba's link to Fox News, where we read:

Sotomayor has a record of being rebuffed by the high court. Of the six decisions she was a part of that came before the high court, five were reversed. In the sixth, the court disagreed with Sotomayor's reasoning.

Other news sources have the numbers slightly different (the difference being apparently counting the number of cases where she wrote the majority decision as opposed to cases where she was simply involved in some capacity):

Sotomayor reversed 60% by high court

With Judge Sonia Sotomayor already facing questions over her 60 percent reversal rate, the Supreme Court could dump another problem into her lap next month if, as many legal analysts predict, the court overturns one of her rulings upholding a race-based employment decision.

Three of the five majority opinions written by Judge Sotomayor for the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals and reviewed by the Supreme Court were reversed, providing a potent line of attack raised by opponents Tuesday after President Obama announced he will nominate the 54-year-old Hispanic woman to the high court.

Oh, my God, the humanity of that "high" reversal rate! We should all be horrified and appalled! Or we would be, if we were hideous, bloated imbeciles like Jabba. Now let's see what's really going on:

So the Supreme Court granted review in a total of five cases where she authored the majority opinion and reversed the decision in three of them, giving her a 60 percent reversal rate … which is actually quite good considering that, in recent years, the Supreme Court has reversed more than 70% of all the cases it has heard.

But more importantly, as the article points out, Sotomayor wrote 380 majority decisions in her 11 years on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, the vast majority of which didn’t get reversed by the Supreme Court. In fact, only five even ended up there and thus her three reversals out of 380 decisions gives her a reversal rate of exactly 0.00789473684%.

The only “problem” for Sotomayor here is the Times’ pathetic lack of math skills.

Actually, the correct value is 0.7894%, which is still less than one percent. But still, what's with that high value once a case comes before the Supremes? Let's let someone over at Daily Kos explain it:

That number might seem high, but it makes perfect sense. The Supreme Court, unlike the federal circuit courts of appeal, can choose which cases it wants to hear (a perogative called certiorari). The Supremes select just a handful of matters (maybe 1-2% out of thousands) each year, and they generally pick rulings they'd like to overturn. After all, if they're happy with an appeals court decision, why spend more time on it if they'd only uphold it?

Did you all catch that? It means that the Supreme Court is asked to review lots and lots and lots of cases every year, but the only ones they're going to bother looking at are the ones they see a potential problem with, which means that the cases they take are obviously far more likely to be reversed. Which means that the reversal percentage of only those cases that end up in front of the Supremes is almost utterly meaningless.

In short, 11 years, 380 majority decisions, three reversals. We should all be that good.

P.S. Is it worth asking who else in Stephen Taylor's menagerie of cementheaded whackjobs is going to foist this idiocy on their readership? Feel free to occasionally check over there and leave a comment as to who's the next retard on the list.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty offered an impromptu fiscal update Tuesday, announcing that this year's budget deficit will balloon to more than $50-billion – a new record for red ink in Canada as the costs of the economic downturn mount.

And yet, it was just last fall that the poster boy for Canadian wingnut welfare Stephen Taylor was all a-flutter over the praise:

And yet, in a sinking world, Canada is something of a cork. Its well-regulated banks are solid. Growth has slowed but not stopped. The big worry is the fear that an American recession will drag Canada down with it.

Mr Harper says, rightly enough, that his government has taken prudent measures to help Canada weather a storm it cannot duck: he has offered tax cuts and selective aid to help vulnerable manufacturing towns. But it is his seeming non-reaction to what is so far a non-crisis that looks likely to deny him the majority he was seeking, and could even let in the opposition. In what is the first credit-crunch election in a big Western country, Mr Harper’s ejection would set a dispiriting precedent that panic plays better politically than prudence.

Well, how about now, Stephen? Would it be all right to panic now? Do we have your permission?

Kinda like this. I can't remember who suggested it but apparently it's true -- I've personally become such a fearsome metaphysical presence on the Intertoobz that even a simple link from me is enough to drive Canada's wankers into frantic tap-dancing and pants wetting.

"... if you're like all Americans, you know almost nothing except for your own country. Which makes you probably knowledgeable about one more country than most Canadians...

"First, facts about Canada. Canada is a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it. Canadians make no connection between the fact that they are a Northern European welfare state and the fact that we have very low economic growth, a standard of living substantially lower than yours, a massive brain drain of young professionals to your country, and double the unemployment rate of the United States.

"In terms of the unemployed, of which we have over a million-and-a-half, don't feel particularly bad for many of these people. They don't feel bad about it themselves, as long as they're receiving generous social assistance and unemployment insurance."

So, where were we? Oh, right ... Stephen Taylor was mocking Michael Ignatieff's overwhelming obsession and love affair with the United States. Carry on, Stephen.

AFTERSNARK: And speaking of irony, here's Harper again:

"Of our two legislative houses, the Senate, our upper house, is appointed, also by the Prime Minister, where he puts buddies, fundraisers and the like."

Apparently, I don't pay close enough attention since I only now ran across the curious aggregator canadianblogs.net, whose main purpose in life appears to be to further publicize the deranged brain spasms of folks like Dr. Roy and Twatrick Ross, whose contributions to anti-intellectuallism in Canadian culture is crammed in between the numerous posts advertising Canadian freebies, price choppers, coupon specials and promos for the Toronto Real Estate Board.

Apparently they are entitled to their entitlements. They are the natural governing party. This entitlements [sic] includes stealing tax money, live in slaves, all claims of patritism [sic], all immigrant votes, support from all journalists, immunity from prosecution or investigation and access to handicapped parking.

And what did Jabba the Roy think worthy of reproducing?

POSTED BY TIM BOUSQUET ON MON, MAY 25, 2009 AT 2:49 PMI should know by now to carry my camera with me everywhere. Yesterday, national Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff spoke at the Dartmouth Sportsplex arena to shore up support for provincial Liberal Party leader Stephen McNeil. I was downstairs in the gym.

When I left, there was the Liberal Party van parked sideways across six handicap parking spaces, with cones and ribbons around it lest any handicapped driver get any ideas.

Cool. And if we follow Jabba the Roy's actual link to its source, is there anything else that might be newsworthy (emphasis leg-humpingly added)?

... When I left, there was the Liberal Party van parked sideways across six handicap parking spaces, with cones and ribbons around it lest any handicapped driver get any ideas.

The Sportsplex blocks these spaces with uncomfortable regularity, but you gotta wonder why none of the Liberal handlers or pols didn't say, "Hey, the optics are all wrong here, let's park on the other side of the door and block the non-restricted parking instead."

It could, I suppose, be argued that there is a surplus of handicap parking spaces at the Sportsplex—there are four immediately in front of the door, with the six across the lane from the door; I rarely see more than three or four in use, but on the other hand, if they're all going to be used it'll be for some high-profile event like, say, the appearance of the national leader of a political party.

Yeah, missing all that delicious context. That's so incredibly mudfortunate, wouldn't you say? Blogging Tory dr. roy: because someone has to make Hunter look positively intellectual.

This has all the makings of a two-fer for Neo: he can tell a bunch of whiny, bleeding-heart liberals to fuck off with their grieving, teary exhibitionism, and still revel in the delight of someone getting snuffed.

The only way this could get any better for Neo is if someone was black. Victim. Executed murderer. Mourning parents. Doesn't really matter -- it all works for him as long as someone ends up dead. And black.

LOGIC, TORTURED AND OTHERWISE: Not surprisingly, in demeaning Woodstock's formerly-worried citizens as a bunch of useless, self-absorbed attention whores, Neo has to carefully describe how that differs from people who line the highway to pay their respects to Canada's military fallen because, apparently, that's different because ... well, I'm not really sure but, as best I can tease it out, having a candlelight vigil before learning of Tori Stafford's fate is utterly useless since it does nothing whatsoever to get her back and, after all, that's all that matters.

However, employing that kind of logic, one could similarly denigrate those pompous, narcissistic prats who hold "Red t-shirt Friday" rallies to show support for our troops. After all, that kind of public whoring technically does no good for the troops whatsoever. Certainly, it doesn't protect them from snipers or roadside IEDs. Really, all it does is give a bunch of attention-starved yobs the chance to preen and posture in front of the cameras and feel good about themselves. Not a lot of difference as far as I can tell.

But I'm sure that's still different. It must be. Otherwise, Neo would look like a hypocritical jerkoff. And, God knows, we can't have that.

In the about bloody time dept., Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has spoken out against the Catholic orders in Ireland responsible for operating workhouses where children were serially abused.

The comments from Martin, a veteran Vatican diplomat, were the harshest yet by a Roman Catholic leader following last week's report detailing widespread abuse in scores of church-run industrial schools from the 1930s to 1990s.

If the Catholic church is to survive into the 21st century with any sort of credibility, it will need to clean up its dirty act and stop enabling and protecting predators. Archbishop Martin's stance is a welcome break from the filthy lie of the few bad apples defense and the subsequent cover ups and intimidation that have been tacit policy. Even in the wake of a nine year study and 2,600 page report, the church is denying culpability, hiding their pet felons and shifting the burden for reparations and compensation to the civil government. The lucky taxpayers get to pay for the crimes of the deviant clergy.

Martin said the nuns and Catholic brothers who ran the workhouses must drop their refusal to renegotiate an intensely criticized 2002 agreement with the Irish government over compensation for victims. The orders offered to pay only euro128 million (US$175 million) to the government to be protected from victims' civil lawsuits, while taxpayers are picking up a much larger bill to compensate over 14,000 victims of physical, sexual and mental abuse.

These supposed persons of faith fought tooth and nail to minimize exposure. They wrangled a deal to limit their share of compensation to a fraction of the total, shifting the greater burden to the taxpayers and still manage to conceal the identities of the child abusers and rapists in their midst. None of the perpetrators will see the insides of a cell and none of their victims will see justice done. Somehow within the church and its many orders it is better to protect those who commit physical, sexual and emotional violence against children than it is to protect children or accept responsibility for sins against them. So much for the cleansing and redemptive power of confession and contrition. The hypocrisy is almost enough to make one gag. Thanks goodness that there is at least one leader like Archbishop Martin speaking out from within, an unenviable task to be sure.

"In many ways, it is your last chance to render honor to charismatic founders and to so many good members of your congregations who feel tarnished," he said.The Conference of Religious in Ireland, the umbrella body for the church's semiautonomous orders of Catholic brothers and nuns, declined to respond to Martin's comments. Last week it said none of its members intended to make any additional financial contributions -- provoking a furious response from victims and some politicians, but not from the government.

No comment, no responsibility, no help for the victims... and folks wonder why the church is increasingly viewed with contempt. Sadly, the story does not end here because this is not a story of bad apples and isolated instances. There exists within the church a culture of deviance that allows for these crimes to take place on a widespread basis over generations and around the world. The bitter stories of child abuse in the Irish church are far from over.

Martin last month warned Dublin's Catholic faithful they will be shocked and outraged when the next investigation into clerical sex abuse -- in Martin's own archdiocese -- is published this summer.That Justice Department-commissioned probe seeks to detail how hundreds of priests molested and raped children in Dublin from the 1940s onward while church and state agencies failed to report, punish and stop the abuse.

Hundreds of priests, thousands of victims and yet another in the long, disgusting list of church crimes against children. The complicity of government in quieting and covering up these crimes is no less disturbing and speaks to the power and influence that the church has within the secular arena. If I had a prayer in my heart it would be for Archbishop Martin in his battle on behalf of the innocents and victims of corruption in the Catholic church. It is heartening to see at least one church official with the courage and moral fortitude to speak and work against the culture of perversion that nests within the church, protected from exposure and justice.

Putting on a hockey uniform is a time-honoured ritual that spans generations. First the jock, then the shin pads, the colourful socks, the protective headgear—I never wore one myself as a boy, but it’s basically how I dressed for Dungeons & Dragons on Friday nights.

Hell yeah, respect and all that because after all, doesn't the church display endless respect toward those of opposing views?

"Let us be a society in which we genuinely listen to each other, in which sincere disagreement is not made out to be insult or harassment, in which reasoned principles are not construed as prejudice and in which we are prepared to attribute to each other the best and not the worst of motives."

The archbishop played a leading role in fighting the introduction of gay rights laws in 2006, which now make it illegal to discriminate against gay couples when placing children for adoption.

Um, never mind then... moving on. The Archbishop prattled on about community and faith and respect and conscience and all sorts of fine sounding stuff that his sort forget to practice as they campaign to control the contents of your britches and ovaries and such. But the bag won't hold the cat when it comes to what theatre folk call the reveal.

Earlier, the new Archbishop risked controversy on his first day in office when he said a report exposing decades of systematic child abuse by Catholic priests and nuns in Ireland would "overshadow" the good they had done.He said it took "courage" for Catholic church members who abused children to face up to their actions.

Yes. It would simply be wrong to allow a mere three generations of serial sexual assault, physical, mental and emotional abuse against children to overshadow the rousing success of the mighty Catholic Church and the parish bingo. Why, those selfish little brats should be thankful for the opportunity to be enslaved, beaten and raped in the name of the father, the son and spooky the ethereal something or other. Don't those spoiled shits know how much courage it took for the dozens, perhaps hundreds, of criminally violent pedophiles and cassocked villains to sue to maintain their anonymity, avoid exposure and prosecution under the protection of the church?

Why those poor, poor men and women of faith have to live out the rest of their days free and at large in the community, knowing the sweet taste of innocent flesh. Recalling the tender cries of the children suffering under their hands and knowing that they aren't supposed to indulge anymore. Why, having avoided exposure, justice and accountability, haven't they suffered enough?

They had to face up to their actions. Heck, I'm sure they even had to promise not to rape any more kids, no more tormenting, beating, humiliating and abusing the little ones. Got that Father Tom? And you Sister Mary Margaret? Good. Now six Hail Mary and a Lord's Prayer and we're all done here. Courage, there it is. You'd never recognize it if it didn't make you sick to the pit of your stomach. But how is it that this leader of the flock can be so fucking ignorant, blind and horrible? I really think it is kind of built in to the faith. Here's what another church leader has to say in his memoirs, this time in the Americas.

Because really, while we knew it was wrong to rape those innocents left in our charge it was delicious. Had we known there was a possibility of actual punishment involved, why, we'd have maybe had a second thought before defiling those kids. But here is the nub, the root of the crooked tree that the seeds of Catholicism has planted...

Accepted naively the common view that it was not necessary to worry about the effects on the youngsters: either they would not remember or they would ‘grow out of it'.

What the sweet screaming hell is in this creepy old bastard's head, the common view? Maybe that's the common view down at the NAMBLA picnic but that view doesn't seem to be too common anywhere else but inside the Catholic hierarchy. And what's the harm of a little good natured child rape when you figure they'll just forget or grow out of their trauma? The common view within the church seems to be that if you rape kids, you get a new job, your tracks are covered and if you get caught they'll do what they can to protect your sick ass, skirt responsibility and keep on keeping on. It appears that the men in black have fostered a culture of corruption that feeds on the young and vulnerable but let's not let that cast a shadow on the good works.

Weakland, who retired in 2002 after it became known that he paid $450,000 in 1998 to a man who had accused him of date rape years earlier.

So let's be perfectly clear here. This sick old prick had sexually assaulted someone, hid his crimes beneath his robes for years, when confronted with real world sanction he came up with almost half a million dollars (so much for vows of poverty) and tried to buy his way out of responsibility. Now surely the local Archbishop can't be getting away with that sort of maneuvering without the church's knowledge yet his "retirement" came four fucking years after the pay off and only when that pay off was exposed. The church was content to let a known rapist sit in authority over the spiritual well being of an entire region. But really, let's think about the good works, priorities people.

Weakland’s critics allege that, when he was Archbishop of Milwaukee, he had tried to cover up some of the widespread abuse that had taken place in the diocese – in particular by overseeing an evaluation in 1993 of Father Lawrence Murphy, one of those prosecuted for abuse.A 2003 report on the sexual abuse of minors by clergy in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee revealed that allegations of sexual assaults on minors had been made against 58 ordained men, who were under the direct supervision of the Archbishop of Milwaukee.By early 2009, the Archdiocese of Milwaukee had spent approximately $26.5 million in attorney fees and settlements to victims.

Why, if it wasn't for a few bad apples... $26.5 million dollars out of the parish coffers, tithe that suckers. Would have been a damn sight cheaper to just get some hookers, at least that's honest. Since it appears that the Catholic Church is a haven for pedophiles, rapists and child abusers, when will we see the devout rise up against the villains in their midst? It is high time that the church paid for the bizarre sexual repression and deviant culture that underpins these crimes.

I'm surprised there's a Catholic church left standing in Milwaukee, let's chalk that up to the courage and forbearance of the men, women and children that were victimized there. Theirs is the true courage as they have to live out the rest of their lives bearing the scars and damage caused by the people to whom they trusted their spiritual well being. Their courage was forced upon them by violence and betrayal and against their will. The sick people who perpetrated these heinous crimes lack the self awareness to even recognize that they were indeed committing crimes or that they even needed to worry about the damage being caused to the youngsters in their charge. With each sordid revelation, this becomes the face of the church revealed. My sympathies to honest men and women and to the victims of the faith, you are betrayed.

Now put another pot of coffee on, please and thank you -- I have about 8 hours of edits and rewrites to get through. And as God is my witness, if I have to deal with one more ungrateful, snot-nosed, navel-gazing, attention whore consultant suffering from the misconception that they don't need to help write their bid, I won't be responsible for my actions.

Well what do you know? All those Tory 10%ers the Liberals have been complaining about? Well they've finally followed suit, and are sending out photocopied 10%ers just like the Tories! I just got one in my mailbox today!

So, if I EVER hear a Liberal complaining about them again, I'll just refer them to Liberal Caucus Services.

Yea, as ususal... hypogrits.

Would someone like to educate said buffoon, or shall we just snicker, roll our eyes, and move on?

Before he was transported from Bagram to Guantanamo, Omar Khadr was dressed in an orange polyester uniform and hog-chained: shackled hand and foot, a waist chain cinching his hands to his stomach, another chain connecting the shackles on his hands to those on his feet. At both wrist and ankle, the shackles bit. The cuffs permanently scarred many prisoners on the flight, causing them to lose feeling in their limbs for several days or weeks afterwards. Hooded and kneeling on the tarmac with the other prisoners, Omar waited for many hours. His knees sent intensifying pain into his body and then went numb...

In the interrogation room, Omar’s interviewer grew displeased with his level of cooperation. He summoned several MPs, who chained Khadr tightly to an eye-bolt in the center of the floor. Omar’s hands and feet were shackled together; the eye-bolt held him at the point where his hands and feet met. Fetally positioned, he was left alone for about a half hour.

Upon their return, the MPs uncuffed Omar’s arms, pulled them behind his back, and recuffed them to his legs, straining them badly at their sockets. At the junction of his arms and legs he was again bolted to the floor and left alone. The degree of pain a human body experiences in this from of “stress positioning” can quickly lead to delirium, and ultimately to unconsciousness. Before that happened, the MPs returned, forced Omar onto his knees, and cuffed his wrists and ankles together behind his back. This made his body into a kind of bow, his torso convex and rigid, right at the limit of its flexibility. The force of his cuffed wrists straining upward against his cuffed ankles drove his kneecaps into the concrete floor. The guards left...

One can just imagine Blogging Tory and violence fetishist "Neo Conservative" reading that and reacting, "Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, unnggggggghhhh ... um, honey? Could you bring me some more paper towels? No, no, don't come in, just leave them by the door, thanks."

Once upon a time I took a lot of heat for calling Obama just another politician, a charismatic empty suit woven of nebulous promises and stitched with threads of unfounded hope. It all just seemed too easy. After nearly a decade of the machinations of Richard "Dick" Cheney and his half wit pal George W. Bush, Obama was a breath of fresh air. He spoke rapturously with a poetic ring to his deep voice and the people responded. He was young, handsome and a Madison Avenue dream, he could be packaged and sold with tremendous success and lo November did come and to the shock, relief and delight of many the world over he won election. He won an historic vote becoming the first African American President of the United States of America.

And now, the first hundred days are past and where are the hopes and dreams? Indeed, perhaps yes we can, but have we? Where is the change that was promised, where is the new day in America? Grim, stupid wars still wage and threaten to escalate. Guantanamo is still in business and between the Democratic controlled House, Senate and Executive there appears to be no hope what so ever to change the state of affairs in that poisonous little corner of Cuba. Habeas Corpus is still off the books and may disappear into the annals of American history as they sink further into the morass of a rule by fear. It seems the change that Obama is believing in right now is a change from the ad hoc approach to unitary executive power a la Bush to a new police state regime that allows for the disappearing of persons without charge or trial for an indefinite (read eternal) period. From the ground up, Obama is planning to create a new and sinister notion of the rule of law that breaks with the long tradition of rights as initially endorsed in the Magna Carta and perhaps most beautifully stated in the Constitution of the United States. Ironic that the new president chose that remarkable document to stand before as he delivered his speech. I can only assume he did so in order to wipe with the words there enshrined.

Former VP Cheney spelled it out for Obama today - and left a line in the sand that if (and when) the US gets hit again, it will be clear that the Democrat’s policies and actions allowed it.

I'm sorry, I missed that first part, could you repeat that?

Former VP Cheney spelled it out for Obama today - and left a line in the sand that if (and when) the US gets hit again, ...

One more time, with the appropriate emphasis:

Former VP Cheney spelled it out for Obama today - and left a line in the sand that if (and when) the US gets hit again, ...

Former U.S. vice-president Dick Cheney: Drawing a line in the sand and warning what might happen if Barack Obama is so incompetent, he ends up allowing terrorists to kill 3,000 people. 'Cuz it would suck to have that happen twice, know what I'm saying?

P.S. By the way, Dick Cheney really is a deranged lunatic. But let's not mention that to "SoV." Facts can be so annoying.

You attack religion, you scoff at people who do not believe in evolution, you think abortion is perfectly okay, and that global warming is a settled science. You are not mentally diseased, but in your quest to be progressive, you have lost your morals. May God help you.

We "scoff at people who do not believe in evolution?" Well, yeah, because they're idiots. What part of that seems to have eluded you, you twit?

Stephen Taylor and the Taylorettes: Dragging Canada kicking and screaming into the 14th century. On a good day.

Once again, the gentle, wang-stroking sycophancy should be a dead giveaway:

I am a great admirer of Maxime Bernier. He is a true believer in economic and personal freedom. When I spoke to him a few days ago he told me he was starting a new blog. He introduced me to his venerable dad. We also discussed a flat tax.

I want Maxime back in cabinet. He should have an economic portfolio. I look forward to reading Maxime's blog. You should too. I hope he will join the Blogging Tories!

DUBLIN – After a nine-year investigation, a commission published a damning report Wednesday on decades of rapes, humiliation and beatings at Catholic Church-run reform schools for Ireland's castaway children.

The 2,600-page report painted the most detailed and damning portrait yet of church-administered abuse in a country grown weary of revelations about child molestation by priests.

The investigation of the tax-supported schools uncovered previously secret Vatican records that demonstrated church knowledge of pedophiles in their ranks all the way back to the 1930s.

Can we please stop being surprised by any of this anymore? Appalled? Yes. Horrified? Absolutely. Surprised? Oh, please. It's sort of like being taken aback when a Blogging Tory writes something racist. There's just no shock value anymore.

SPEAKING OF the Blogging Tories, is there a single BT who's reported on this scandal? I've just been through the last several pages of links over at Stormfront North and, as near as I can tell, there's not one reference. Apparently, this just isn't news. For some people.

The drooling stupidity of Stephen Taylor's Blogging Tories is a constant source of depressing entertainment. Here's Hunter again, suggesting how we teach that uppity darkie Barack Obama a thing or two:

Bring It On Obama!

US protectionism will make Canada wake up. After every recession comes change, it just might not be the change Obama was thinking about. Obama wants cap and trade, fine, we will cap it off, and trade it to China and India. How would the US react to loosing 20% of their energy supply?